Joy Street (novel)

Joy Street is a 1950 novel by Frances Parkinson Keyes. Despite only being released on December 1, 1950, it was ranked as the second best-selling novel in the United States for 1950.[2] Over two million copies were in print by the mid-1950s.[3][4][5] It also topped the New York Times Best Seller list for eight weeks in 1951.

Joy Street
First edition
AuthorFrances Parkinson Keyes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
GenreNovel
PublisherJulian Messner (US) / Eyre and Spottiswoode (UK)[1]
Publication date
December 1, 1950
Media typePrint (hardcover)
Pages490 pp

The novel is set in Boston and explores a married couple facing the elitist expectations and norms of Boston society. Kirkus Reviews described it as a "meticulously caparisoned romantic novel."[6] William Darby's 1987 review of the popular literature of the 1950s describes the novel as "a characteristic woman's novel", which "unfolds at an excruciating pace."[7]

The novel was also serialized in Good Housekeeping magazine in November and December 1950.[8]

References
  1. (28 July 1951). An Engrossing Modern Story (review), The Age
  2. Hackett, Alice Payne. Seventy years of best sellers, 1895-1965, p. 185 (1967) ("second in fiction sales, it reached its place in only one month in the bookstores. It was published on December 1 with an advance of 110,000. Re-orders makes its total, by the end of the year, 140,285.")
  3. The Publisher, Volume 170, Part 1, p. 34 ("Joy Street has been Mrs. Keyes' most popular novel, and it has sold over 2,000,000 copies in the English language alone.")
  4. Cournos, John. Middle-Drawer Brahmins (review), The New York Times (subscription required)
  5. Branswell, Mary (23 December 1950). Charms of Boston Colors New Novel (review), Manitoba Ensign
  6. (12 December 1950). Joy Street (review), Kirkus Reviews
  7. Darby, William. Necessary American Fictions: Popular Literature of the 1950s, p. 166 (1987)
  8. Pawley, Christine. Reading Places: Literacy, Democracy, and the Public Library in Cold War America, p. 228 (2010)
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